Time To Fire Tim Geithner

We don't
mean to sound impatient, but we've seen enough. The country
is in the middle of the worst financial crisis in 75 years, and
the second-most-important person in charge clearly isn't the
right man for the job.

When both engines on US Air Flight 1549 quit after takeoff, Capt.
Sullenberger did not cling stubbornly to his preconceived view of
the situation. He did not float endless versions of the
same bad plan to air traffic controllers to see what they thought
of them. He did not spend months preparing for a moment
just like this only to be seized by indecision when it arrived.

Instead, he just took the controls and landed the plane in the
Hudson.

Note that this was not a risk-free, popular, or easy
decision. When air traffic controllers learned where
Sullenberger was headed, they thought everyone in the plane was
dead. But if Sullenberger had taken the easier route, and
tried for Teterboro, they all would have been
dead--along with a bunch of folks on the ground.

Before taking office at the end of January, Tim Geithner had many
months to develop a solid plan for what to do. He had the
opportunity to see what was working and what wasn't and to
consult with dozens of experts, many of whom had no stake in the
matter (unlike the Wall Street kingpins who seem to have shaped
Geithner's inaccurate view of the situation). He had the
opportunity to see and understand that what America needs most
right now is clarity and decisiveness.

Then he took office. In the five weeks since, Tim Geithner
has:

Given a speech billed as the solution to the financial
crisis in which he promised something vague, someday, that
sounded an awful lot like the bad plan that didn't work in the
past administration (which really isn't that
surprising, given that Geithner was the one who came up with
the earlier bad plan).

Floated multiple versions of the same plan into the
press hoping that one would be enthusiastically received by
someone other than Wall Street (no dice.)

Refused to seriously discuss the consensus opinion of
most neutral economists and experts: That the banking system is
insolvent and that the solution is pre-privatization.

Given Congressional testimony in which his brusque,
defensive manner and weak responses have inspired no confidence
and served only to make people wonder again why Obama picked
him for the job.

and, most importantly, Tim Geithner has:

Refused to revisit or defend his almost certainly
inaccurate view that this crisis is merely a temporary price
decline caused by a lack of liquidity, rather than a
collapse of a debt-driven economy. You can't cure the
patient if you're treating the wrong problem.

With a few years of seasoning in a normal environment, Tim
Geithner might turn out to be a fine Treasury Secretary.
But this isn't a normal environment, and we don't have a few
years.

The engines of the US economy just quit. We're losing
altitude rapidly. And the co-pilot flying the plane clearly
doesn't know what to do.

So it's time for the captain to take over again, before Geithner
takes him and the rest of us down with him.